Gaza City  - Israeli F16 warplanes rocketed tunnels and a Hamas outpost in two separate airstrikes in the southern Gaza Strip Tuesday evening, witnesses said.

At least two rockets struck the border area between the southern Gaza town of Rafah and Egypt, they said, adding they heard two successive loud explosions in the area and the sound of F16s flying overheard.

One missile also hit a a post of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, the radical Islamic movement ruling Gaza. No injuries were reported in either of the strikes.

Tel Aviv  - Palestinian militants fired a Russian-type Grad rocket Tuesday morning at the southern Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon.

The rocket landed in a residential neighbourhood in the city centre, "just a number of metres from heavy traffic," Mayor Beni Wakni said.

"Only Hamas has Grad rockets as far as I know, so this is Hamas," he told Israel Radio.

Geneva  - Hospitals in the Gaza Strip are in need of specialized foreign doctors to help cope with some of the medical cases that resulted from the recent Israeli offensive in the enclave, the Palestinian health minister said Monday.

"We need teams of war surgeons and others, like neurosurgeons, plastic surgeries, reconstruction surgeries," said Fathi Abu Moghli, the minister in the West Bank government.

Cairo  - Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is due to meet Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak Monday for a new round of talks on establishing a long-term ceasefire in Gaza.

His visit comes amid reports of a significant progress in negotiations and Israeli threats of a "fierce and disproportionate" response to continued rocket fire on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip.

Rafah, Egypt  - An Egyptian opposition politician will face military prosecutors on Monday for going to the Gaza Strip in a highly publicized trip last week, his lawyer told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa on Sunday.

The Egyptian military detained Magdi Hussein, a fiery orator from Egypt's suspended Labour Party, on Saturday on charges of crossing Egypt's borders illegally, Hussein's lawyer, Hassan Ali, told dpa on Sunday.

Military prosecutors will interrogate Hussein on Monday before deciding whether to try him before a military tribunal, Ali said.

Hussein chronicled his trip in daily entries posted to the Labour Party's website after he crossed into the Gaza Strip through a hole in the border fence on January 23.

Tel Aviv  - Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired rockets into Israel Sunday, in a continuation of sporadic attacks two weeks after a ceasefire between the Israeli military and the Hamas mo